Battle of the Bulge – My Summer Body

God knows I’ve worked hard towards my summer body this year! I made drastic changes to my diet, worked harder than ever during my workouts, strived towards being more consistent, lost some…struggled to stay motivated through Winter, persevered through it anyway and then came back stronger with the changing seasons. And now, here we are at the beginning of Summer…and still my Summer body is not ready!!!

Last year, despite not having anything remotely resembling a Summer body, I decided to let go of my inhibitions and scratched out my old swimsuit anyway. I decided not to rob myself of enjoying summer with my kids and amongst a whole lot of other self realisations (there’s a very sentimental post you can read here ), when I look back at all those pictures and memories captured, it was also glaringly obvious that I needed a new swimsuit!! My body has changed so much over the years. Housing 3 kids has had it’s obvious effects, and despite working hard towards losing weight, maintaining a healthy lifestyle and keeping the jiggle at bay, I also have to be realistic that some things I just aint never getting back. My body has changed and so my swimsuit HAD to change too! And so, even though I’ll mostly be swimming in my back yard, I wanted to do it in style, and so it was a mission of mine that this summer; armed with my newly liberated mind set that you don’t have to have a perfect body to have fun; to find the perfect swimsuit for my not so perfect body 😉

Amidst the colourful array of high waist bikinis, tankinis and perfectly cut out monokinis…between the board shorts and the surf tops and the printed kaftans, I found the one for me! Black (because it’s always slimming) with a bonus built in bit for tummy control. It comes padded with a bit of a lift, because after 3 kids and the gravity effect I sure as hell need it, and it has a high back so it perfectly camouflages the back fat I didn’t manage to melt away in time. I added a shorts to wear over, and it’s just the thing for that extra inner thigh that all my excruciating exercises didn’t quite get rid of…and I grabbed a brightly coloured kaftan on the last minute to throw over when lounging on the beach! It’s perfect and I’ve never been more excited to welcome in Summer!

I’ve worked hard on my health and fitness this year, and though my body is far from perfect as we venture into the warmer season…and isn’t quite “beach ready” according to societies standards; I’m going to be heading out and having fun with my family anyway…because I’ll take perfect memories over a perfect body any day…or at least this season…or till my body co-operates. Who am I kidding; I’ll take the memories …but still always strive towards keeping fit and healthy!!!